If you could travel back in time to Help Hitler win the war

[jesk]

Keitel pointed out during the interrogation that there had been no discussion of plans. Hitler simply announced the decisions which are subject to execution.

http://militera.lib.ru/docs/da/np_doprosy/keitel-d.html

Nelte: Much depends on such a statement that your cooperation with Hitler is assessed, especially to the extent that you could be considered his companion or adviser. Tell us, did Hitler discuss his plans with you in the same manner as his comrade-in-arms?

Keitel: In general, I deny this. It was not in the spirit of Hitler's peculiar disposition and personality to have advisers of this type, that is, if you call an adviser to someone who gave advice in the sense of presence, let me say about a large number of military elements based on the officer's long experience, but not in the sense of an adviser helping to formulate a solution, such far-reaching decisions, which, of course, are here in mind. In principle, this decision was preceded by weeks and months of careful consideration. During this time, it was possible to clarify the documents, but according to the main position, the decision itself, he did not tolerate any influence. Therefore, no matter how strange it may sound, the final answer was always: "This is my decision and it's final." So announced his decisions.

Nelte: But if different departments argued about such decisions, was there not a general meeting?

Keitel: No, it's not. I can not remember that any really important decisions since 1938 were formulated as a result of joint meetings between politicians, soldiers or other ministers, because the way in which Adolf Hitler talked, how privately each department and every department head learned from him , what he wants, and then would look for some element that could be used in his plans. Everything went wrong, as presented in the minutes of meetings of generals, meetings and similar things with a list of those present. Never had such a meeting been of a deliberation nature. This could not be a question. Rather, the Fuhrer had a certain idea, and for various reasons he thought that we confront his idea internally, he used it as an excuse to explain his thoughts to a wide audience without any discussion. In other words, at such meetings, which the documents here call meetings, there was no discussion. I can add that even the internal form in which such things took place followed the military principle, the senior commander collected a certain number of generals, all sat down, the Führer came, spoke and left. Nobody in this situation had the opportunity to say anything. Using one word for this, and definitely I'm not exaggerating, it was giving back the order, but not meeting.

[ljadw]

He said after the war that he wanted to resign, which is something different .

[jesk]

Hitler received a report with a request for resignation and rejected him.

[Lil Pepe]

Germany had a hard row to hoe no matter what. Everyone hated them even before Hitler, there were no resources, and they were caught between Soviet Union and British empire. But I think they still could have won the war. They pretty much did win the war but threw out their successes. Von Manstein's book and the other book about von Manstein go over most of the reasons things went badly. They get blamed on Hitler often and he did make some big blunders, but mainly it was the fault of the high command that most of the bad decisions were made.

1. When I play hearts of iron 3, I ALWAYS license a bunch of landing craft from Japan. Many nitwits make out like this stuff is rocket science and there is NO WAY that the Germans could get across the tiny channel. Simply not true, they just had never bothered to make a proper boat to do so. The Japanese had the perfect invasion class back in 1937. Even that would not be necessary really, just to make SOME KIND of light transports and to focus on light cruisers instead of giant battleships as that was all that was needed to cross the channel. Battleships sound great but they do not stand up to air power and would have been all but useless in the channel even in the HIGHLY UNLIKELY event they put their capital ships into the channel in the first place, which would take at least 4 days even if they wanted to.

2. Skip Battle of Britain. This 'war' could be won, but why? You are just expending aircraft for no reason, and it is impossible to eradicate the air force of another country completely without a land invasion anyway. And bombing london is a pretty useless activity as well.

3. Dunkirk. Likely English would simply have given up if Dunkirk evacuation had failed. According to Manstein: Hitler's Master Strategist, records now show that this was the fault of Halder and von Brautisch. They were very old fashioned and indeed had even ordered Guderian not to advance ahead of the infantry! If he had not broken this order there would have been no blitzkrieg in the first place.

4. Not mobilizing the economy until far too late.

5. Not building tanks/tank destroyers with strong enough guns. They were caught unprepared from the T34 and had to make an emergency effort to fix their mistake.

6. Canceling nuclear program but keeping the rocket program, which actually cost more than the manhattan project but delivered nothing of immediate use.

7. Not building enough fighters. Luftwaffe's main job should have been to take down bombers and second should have been close air support, not to spend huge resources on useless strategic bombing.

8. North Africa. A huge drain on supplies and infrastructure that was terribly vital.

9. Getting caught up in Yugoslavia, should have attacked sooner regardless. Even if English did land it would be a giant mistake on their part.

10. Not letting Manstein take Leningrad. Same issue as in Dunkirk but much less well known, where higher ups blundered by forcing the lower level commanders to hold back instead of pressing the blitzkrieg. Since the Russians got around 75% of all their weapons either directly or indirectly (ie as steel) through lend lease, this alone could have been enough to take down Russia. From here you can easily link up with the Finns and take murmansk, meaning all supplies had to come across the trans-siberian railroad and that breaking this line at any point on the line would mean game over.

11. Trying to seize Caucasius oil which was just a fool's erand.

12. Trying to take moscow too soon which was a both tough nut to crack and not really necessary. Worse yet doing so in the middle of winter. It's possible it could be taken but it would have been difficult.

13. Not waiting longer for the war to start.

14. Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. May as well take all of Poland and Baltic if you are going to invade. Germany got very little out of invading Poland, mainly just what it had before the first world war! Russia had zero chance to fight Germany at this point in time in the middle of the purges. They only grew stronger and stronger each year after that. This would also mean that Leningrad and Moscow would be highly vulnerable to attack by Germany and most likely Russia would have been much more accommodating with the Germans.

15. Let Russia attack first. Historically, Germany had always beat them on the defense and with strong tank busters and good artillery it would be virtually impossible for Russia to break through in this new war. Then you can make huge infrastructure in Poland and Baltic and if it does come down to war then you can very easily project your force into Leningrad and Moscow and very nearly every other city in Russia that's of any importance. This way you can make an easy attack any time, or else skip it completely if Russia behaves itself. With England on its knees there would not be much reason for such an attack in the first place. You would not have a huge resource crisis any more, and you would have no chance of encirclement.

[AbollonPolweder]

If I could I wouldn't, because I don't want Hitler to win the war! I would go back and assassinate him in 1932 before he gets into power.

But this is the answer of the real hero. However, writing about the murder of Hitler and implementing it are different things.
The main error of Hitler was the loss of time. He showed his generals a deep knowledge of the strategy, caring for the northern and southern flanks. Although in the summer and autumn of 1941 it was clear that the Soviet command was unable to organize any large-scale counteroffensive. It was necessary to concentrate the main forces in late August to seize the Bolshevik center of Moscow.